"Dewey Prosecution May Be Tripped Up By Charge-Heavy Trial," Law360

October 8, 2015

In a Law360 article published on October 7, 2015, Michael H. Trotter discussed that day’s partial verdict in the high-profile trial of three former leaders of defunct law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. The jury acquitted the defendants of 49 counts of falsifying business records but remained deadlocked on the remaining counts, which included securities fraud and grand larceny. Mr. Trotter, noting the complexity of the case with its confusing accounting adjustments over multiple years, thought the prosecution was too unfocused. “I do think that the prosecution overreached by bringing such a long and complicated list of individual acts in a long and exhaustive trial,” he said. Rather than focusing on Dewey's collapse, they should have focused on the $150 million bond offering and $100 million line of credit from banks that the government says were secured with false information from Dewey’s books. “The focus of the prosecution should have been on the [securities offering] and the financial reports supplied to the banks and their accuracy, the internal process by which these reports were prepared and reviewed, and by whom,” Mr. Trotter said. “That is when the crime would have occurred, not when the firm collapsed.” Law360 subscribers may access the complete article online.